Tag: Bašta

Tempus fugit, amigos: Beer Culture has been live for eleven and a half weeks and we’re now serving 6,500 page views per month, spreading the word about beer culture in the Czech Republic and Central Europe to 65 countries so far. As a means of promoting Czech brewing and saying thanks, we’re announcing a big beer-themed giveaway, by which we mean a reader contest.

But first, it is time for haiku.

That is to say the art form known as beer haiku. I first encountered the beast on the beermats (above) created by David Wheatley for the excellent Whalebone brewpub up in Hull. David is a friend, so when the mats were published he sent along a set; the poems were also included in his latest collection, Mocker. A favorite:

A pub is a boat.
It sails on froth. Each pint pulled
helps keep it afloat.

As it turns out, beer and haiku go along so well that some people even write beer haiku daily. Thus, our first reader contest: write a haiku with a beer theme and send it to the email address of Good Beer Guide Prague and the Czech Republic (also known as GBGPrague@gmail.com). If it’s good enough, your entry could win one of the excellent prizes donated by some of our favorite Czech breweries and pubs, including shirts, glassware and more.

Prague is not in bad shape for beer, not by any means. Not only do we have U sadu, U kláštera and a few hundred other great pubs in town, but we also have about a dozen outstanding local beers, including one brewed by college students. Last month we had the Christmas Beer Markets to keep us warm. And now we’ve got a brand new brewpub in Praha 4-Nusle: Pivovar Bašta.

Also known as Sousedský pivovar U Bansethů (something like “neighborhood brewery U Bansethů”), Bašta sits just across from the nuselská radnice, next door to the old U Bansethů pub, a neighborhood stalwart for a century or so and a good source for Pilsner Urquell.